Actors Who Looked Nothing Like The People They Played

"Maybe a tad more blusher, Mr Cumberbatch..."

There is no absolute need for an actor to look like the real-life person they are playing. As long as they embody a whole character then you can usually move past it. But it can be distracting. If someone is prancing about being all, ‘Look at me, I’m Marilyn Monroe’ when they just look like her from Dawson’s Creek with a beauty spot, it can be hard to get into the film. Take Benedict Cumberbatch in The Fifth Estate. We know he’s supposed to be Julian Assange. He’s made a lot of of effort to look like Julian Assange. Yet he has wound up looking as pale and damp as a limpet who wished to be a real boy. That’s no criticism of his performance, he just looks nothing like him. But he’s in good company.